18
Bliss
Translated by: Frances Riddle
You walk, you walk and you forget: that’s what she always says. Well, not in those exact words. It’s usually a more specific complaint: you didn’t call Pacheco, you didn’t check the Supercable contract, you didn’t take the car to the shop, it’s past dinnertime, you forgot our wedding anniversary and to buy the shampoo I asked you to. She doesn’t expect answers, and Benjamin knows it would be useless to reply. He also knows that beyond that litany of small complaints the true reproach rises up like a weathered plateau, existential, unforgivable. That he didn’t remember. There’s an enormous difference between forgetting and not remembering.
A reproach that, of course, has never been stated outright. The damning weight of everything Benjamin doesn’t remember—or pretends not to remember—could trigger a massive earthquake in all the geological layers that have built up patiently over the years to form a stable foundation. Benjamin doesn’t remember the future that was left behind in the past, that glorious future, bright as the sun, its contours mysteriously fading the closer he got to it. Their thirty-five years together has proved it.
The worst part is that you didn’t remember, she says without saying it, as she talks about the mechanic and the shampoo. You forget everything, she says. The life you promised me (she doesn’t say that). You just walk, and walking doesn’t solve anything, she says, and lately that’s all you do.
As if she didn’t know that Benjamin had started walking under doctor’s orders. The cure for everything at his age, high cholesterol, fatty liver, clogged arteries, and a heart as slow as the owner of these broken-down organs. So he got used to walking. Now his wife suspects that he likes doing it and that’s not something she can allow; it’s not fair, while she lives with the burden of having to remember that dazzling shared future that has simply vanished into the present.
“Enough with the walking, Benjamin. Open the door please! Mauricio is coming for dinner tonight with your grandkids. He never knows what to do with them when it’s his turn to take care of them. They’ve become unbearable since the divorce, clearly their mother’s doing (don’t get me started on her), and Sandrita is sleeping, so you’ll have to run by the bakery. And you could set the table, too, don’t you think? I have to do everything myself. And you, walking and walking!”
The gravel crunches under his feet and the spring air bursts with the trill of invisible birds. Benjamin turns up the volume; from far away comes the neighing of a horse. A delicious sound.
He’s surrounded by a green world of vegetation, just like in the beginning, when he went to the places with public walking trails: La Autopista, Los Caobos, El Parque del Este. He bought himself a Walkman and for a while sucked in his stomach and raised his head, the way one should as a member of the healthy athletic community, where the successful businessmen democratically wear the same shorts as the losers; kingdom of long muscular legs training for marathons, tight leggings, impeccable rear ends, bodies glimmering with sunscreen and sweat. Until the inevitable day when he realized that the others ran or jogged, and even the ones that walked like him passed him easily, time and again. Pounding the cement of the shady trails they seemed to be rushing to some important destination unknown to him. Benjamin, on the other hand, just strolled. He was left behind, as ever. And that reminded him in a way of his wife’s silent reproach, unavoidable as a mountain range. So he put his Walkman in a drawer (you always buy things and then you don’t use them) and opted to give up the car and walk to work, there and back.
“Did you hear me, Benjamin, enough already!” she says. “Open this door! The bakery is going to close.”
Benjamin picks up his pace. He still has a way to go.
His office is in the same old building in which he’d set it up when it was new, long before the city had passed it by and left it forgotten at the end of a pedestrian-only street now crowded with peddlers. Walking there meant getting lost among the stalls and tables, among the chaos of plastic jewelry, perfumes from Taiwan, knockoff blue jeans and Lycra panties with lace. Benjamin wandered, skimming secondhand books and pawing at the pornographic magazines displayed on the sidewalk; sometimes he bought dulce de leche or a badly weighed kilo of tangerines from a young mestiza whose baby the color of raw chocolate slept surrounded by her wares. She spoke in a friendly manner, said that the tangerines were sweet, she called him “my love,” and the magazine seller, a German with white hair and a Colombian accent, shared with him profound reflections on the current state of the nation that Benjamin couldn’t disagree with.
Here there was no past or future at all, much less a now-past future. It was easy to wander with no destination or luggage through that immediate present, ephemeral and eternal at the same time, brought down by shouts and the folding of blankets as soon as the uniformed officers peered around a corner leaving the street suddenly empty, with peeling facades, trash cans crammed with rubbish, and asphalt patches on the cobbled street; but none of it was tragic or permanent: minutes later the vibrant hustle and bustle would return.
Very soon the walk to and from work became the most pleasurable part of each day. Benjamin kept it a secret, of course. He knew very well that he didn’t have the right, while Mauricio was being cleaned out by that harpy of an ex, and Sandrita was putting that powder up her nose that made her incoherent and shrill. And her, poor thing, in the house, alone and remembering.
In the end they found him out. It was inevitable. He was late getting to work, and he had to lie to his elderly secretary. To top it all, his brother-in-law was mugged nearby at the entrance to the Notaría. They ripped open his coat, took out his wallet, and apparently got very angry, since they hit him again and again. So his wife and the doctor forbade him to walk on the street: in any number of ways it was hazardous to the health.
It was an indisputable fact that his cholesterol had increased considerably and his heartrate wasn’t terribly improved by the aimless wanderings of those walks. It doesn’t do anything, they told him, to walk at such a slow pace. Now they’re worried: it seems he walks too fast. At your age it’s dangerous; it could give you a heart attack.
Benjamin, open the door! come the voices of Sandra and his wife. But he plays the madman, he walks, walks, walks, faster and faster. His legs have become strong and his belly has decreased in volume; however, he’s sweaty and panting, his heart pounds in his chest. It doesn’t matter, someday he’ll reach the end of the route. For once in his life he’s doing the right thing: setting objectives and achieving them.
In fact, they’re all responsible, too. They suggested this solution and were even pleased when The Walker was delivered to the house, although they were a bit surprised by the uncharacteristic initiative he’d shown by buying it without consulting anyone. It had been years since Benjamin had bought so much as a shirt by himself. He didn’t even seem to know how he’d discovered the machine in a department store, or how he managed to be immediately persuaded by the salesman, who—strangest thing—didn’t even realize the value of his own merchandise. Almost without meaning to, Benjamin became the owner of a walking machine, the best on the market, latest model. Thankfully they’ll never know how much the extravagance cost.
Immediately thereafter he converted the guest room (totally useless, by the way) into a kind of private gym. There, reading the instruction manual with painstaking care, he set up The Walker with its battery of speakers and projectors.
He began to walk at the lowest speed, and from the start felt a great affinity for this form of exercise that seemed to have been designed especially for him. There’s a melancholically familiar abandon in the act of walking and walking and never reaching your destination. He’d been doing something like that his entire life.
With the exception that he now has something more: the video that came in the package. From the first moment he turned on the projector he knew that something new and important had come into his life. The white wall in front of him was filled with green landscapes as he paraded from tree to tree between crystalline fountains and flowerbeds, the speakers perfectly reproducing the chirping of birds and the crunch of the gravel under his steps. He was alone, marvelously alone, undisputed king of all that beauty. He had a deadbolt installed on the door of his improvised gym. He jealously guarded the key, even sleeping with it in the pocket of his pajamas; your father has gone crazy, she says, who’s going to clean in there?
He patiently clarified that he’d finally found the ideal form of exercise, and he needed to concentrate in order to improve. He was so animated that his wife furrowed her eyebrows, suspicious, but she abstained from commenting. In the end it was a healthy activity, boring, and something recommended by the doctor. She didn’t recognize the signs of danger.
Benjamin, on the other hand, sensed that his life had acquired a new dimension, although it was only after two or three weeks that he began to notice slight alterations in the landscape of the video. First came the inexplicable sounds, suggesting a barely perceptible animal presence. It started with a cicada whose stubbornly unpleasant buzzing followed him for a long stretch of the path. Convinced that the creature had crawled in through the window, Benjamin interrupted the session, determined to get rid of the intruder, and realized with surprise that the buzzing ceased at the very instant he stopped the video. It was either a strange coincidence or a particularly intelligent insect; it began its flight again as soon as he restarted the projection. It never returned. And Benjamin soon forgot it as he concentrated on his walking—becoming ever faster—until one day he stopped, pensive, at the edge of the third pond. He could’ve sworn that every time he’d passed it a clear and powerful stream erupted from its center; nevertheless, today the fountain was turned off, the water took on deep-green tones, and a small wild duck played on the bank. Perplexed, Benjamin let the tape rewind, then started it from the beginning and retraced his steps. This time the stream of water gushed forth, there was no doubt about it, but the little duck remained in place. It was strange that he’d never noticed it before.
For the first time he realized that he’d never made it past that pond, and he was curious. He extended the duration of his walks, then he made an effort to increase his speed. The video rewarded his efforts: indeed, further on the landscape changed. The trees of the park began to morph, on both sides of the path elaborate iron gates now appeared allowing glimpses of opulent mansions two or three stories high and surrounded by gardens. On the third day, panting from exhaustion, he reached a particularly beautiful house, made of wood and covered in rampant ivy. It seemed vaguely familiar to him. He wanted to know who lived there, to ring the bell and go inside, but the rules of The Walker wouldn’t allow it. He could only stay on the path, walking slowly without taking his eyes from the cheerful yellow curtains that hid the mystery within, and he strained his ears to pick up the faint laughter of children playing somewhere in the garden. Suddenly the memory surged forth: her, young and radiant, cutting out pictures from a magazine, the home she’d dreamed of for their shared future. Deep down he knew that it couldn’t be merely a coincidence, a chance image in the video. That house was there for him, some kind of divine trick. Benjamin was struck by it. He stopped exercising and the image disappeared, leaving him sweaty and huffing in front of the blank white wall of the former guest room.
That night he couldn’t get to sleep. Her irregular snores and the sounds of partying that filtered in from Sandra’s room heightened his state of feverish excitement. So anxious was he to return to the house that by five in the morning he was already decked out in his gray sweat-suit.
“Did you fall out of bed or something?” On a sudden impulse he wanted to bring her along—come with me, I want to show you something. She turned her back to him, unwilling to indulge such foolishness. “At this hour? You’re crazy.” So Benjamin briefly caressed the soft foam rollers on his wife’s head and gave up the idea of sharing his discovery with her.
It was for the best: she would’ve called him crazy. From the third pond the clear fountain sprouted up and a family of ducks now swam on the water, but there was no sign of the ivy-covered house. He searched in vain as he walked furiously. He left behind the iron gates and mansions and the path was replaced by a two-lane highway through an uninteresting rural landscape. Soft bluish hills rippled on the horizon. Atop one of them was a city, like a drawing of something far away. After a few days he stopped looking for the house and concentrated all his efforts on reaching the city.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You’re more distracted than ever. You have the same glazed look as Sandra when she was in that institution. And you forgot to call the bank about my credit card … You’re worse than ever. You forget everything. Everything!”
This time it was true: he forgot everything. But he felt better than ever. With a secret sense of anticipation Benjamin caressed the key in his pocket and couldn’t wait for his next exercise session. Now he walked several times a day, locking himself away with The Walker for longer and longer stretches. Unfortunately, the video was designed to encourage a progressive increase in effort: there was no way to restart it at any given point on the route, it always rewound itself to the beginning. If he wanted to get to the end, where the faraway city rose up on the hill or, who knew, further still, he had to return each time to the starting point, cross the park, run around the ponds, the path, the mansions … the highway that followed seemed endless.
“You’ve gone crazy,” she said. “Look at yourself when you leave that room. Pale. You can hardly breathe from exhaustion. The doctor said it’s dangerous; you can’t do it. It’s worse than a physical. No one should do a physical without medical supervision.”
It was true. In some hidden part of Benjamin’s consciousness he knew he had to slow his pace. His legs had become stronger, but his heart had not reacted well. Last night he’d had a pain in his chest again; he had to stop the machine and lie down, panting beside the path, without taking his eyes off the distant hills until they vanished into the whiteness of the horizon. The wall came down on him as he tried to sit up on the carpet, his ears filled with the inexorable whir of the video as it rewound again to the beginning of the route.
They were pounding on the door now. He heard voices, Sandra’s stupid giggling, the shouts of Mauricio’s kids, Come out, Dad. Come out, Grandpa. We want to eat!
“Benjamin, enough already! Forget about the table. I already set it myself. Just come out. Ridiculous old man. I’m going to sell that damned machine. It’s bad for you.”
Benjamin has just reached the foot of the first hill and begins the long-dreamed-of ascent. The pain returns, sharp, this time in his left arm, and his vision blurs a little, but the city isn’t so far away now. His last chance to escape. There, he’ll find another street where the peddlers display their frivolous wonders just for him along the sidewalk. Maybe another office. Maybe another house. Maybe a car will pass and give him a ride, because his time is precious.
“Benjamin,” she begs, now in an anxious voice. “Open the door, Benjamin.”
Mauricio says something about the locksmith who’s on his way. Benjamin longs for the shelter of that unknown city. What a shock they’ll get when they finally break down the door.
He knows that if he gets there soon enough they won’t be able to take away The Walker. Or anything else. Getting to the end is vitally important … A goal, finally. If he trains enough, he’ll get there. It’s simply a question of practice.
With his eyes fixed on his goal, Benjamin picks up the pace.
Bliss
Wants
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